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Topic Review (Newest First)

04-06-2013 09:13 PM

limpyweta

Re: engine-less

ooo! Some of the Oar Club forum is on oarclub dot lefora dot com and voy dot com slash 153904.

04-06-2013 05:33 PM

mac 2-22

Re: engine-less

I have a trolling motor 55# trust no wind it will do just fine just keep battery charged with solar charger. 2years sailing with 40# thrust into 20k winds with 2500 # boat again then i used 1kw gen with 2 battery chargers did 2knots into wind. got me back to dock ok.

04-06-2013 04:48 PM

Alex W

Re: engine-less

There is a small engineless contingent at Shilshole, I think they even have a mailing list. (read the rest of the thread, the "Oar Club" is what I was thinking about).

I like sailing on my friend Bob's engineless Yankee 30.

04-06-2013 04:34 PM

limpyweta

Re: engine-less

I've been aboard during the engineless passages of a C&C 27 with Sail Transport Company, through the ports of Poulsbo, Brownsville, Sequim, Shilshole, Port Townsend, Langley, and Coupeville, in 0-30 knots, with winds in different directions. And I've been aboard with an Oar Clubber on an engineless Yankee 30, from Blake Island to Bellingham. The Oar Club's website, like Sail Transport Company's, is also on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, archive dot org.

Both boats had yuloh-style sculling oars. It was definitely more a matter of timing, good boats surveyed and maintained appropriately, appropriate sails, sail changing methods, and anchoring, weather and water current forecasting abilities, a crew of more than 1, and appropriate planning (ie getting up at 3 am), to avoid stuff like towing the bow from a leeward dock with an inflatable kayak to a nearby mooring buoy, docking at 7 knots, etc. In some circumstances it may have been nice to go into slips on bare poles with two sweeping oars, like pivoting off the winches, mentioned in Jay's book, if the width permitted. There was a lot of mooring and anchoring, or heaving-to, outside of marinas until the weather got a bit calmer. The same kinda thing happened going to certain channels with crappy wind and tidal current.

Sailing in and out of a slip is pretty sweet when conditions are nice enough, thinking of it as a very short dock. One day in Poulsbo, as we were bob-sledding the sloop out of the slip, we saw a guy with a Triton on his jib, sailing around each dock in the marina singlehanded, on a sloop at least 25', with both sails up, like he was tracing his bare hand onto sheet metal with a dremel. I heard it's easy though with the right setup if one tries for like an hour, with something else, like sailing tightly around a couple pillows in the water.

04-05-2013 10:24 PM

barefootnavigator

Re: engine-less

I'm very interested in this but couldn't find anything about engine-less passage making on their site?

04-05-2013 09:59 PM

limpyweta

Re: engine-less

Well, some Oar Club folks are still very much around Puget Sound. Matt Nelson, mentioned in Jay's book, is in the area, and cruised engineless for a bit. One can also search for sailtransportcompany dot com in the Internet Archive for engineless passage making in Puget Sound. It was fun sailing with them, most of the time.

05-31-2012 02:58 PM

minsc

Add Content

05-23-2012 12:01 AM

Capt Len

Re: engine-less

Just be thankful. I've done the naked girl crew thing and getting the anchor up at 3 am is really hard. Time and tide waits.

05-22-2012 04:06 PM

barefootnavigator

Re: engine-less

Thank you all for so much good info. I'm fortunate that my boat was designed to excel in very light winds and I have no schedule so I can pick and choose when and where I go. The truth is if I had the money I would buy a 74' Morris with a crew of naked girls to sail it. I don't have that option so I will sail with what I have and love it rather than be tied to the dock living in perpetual fear thinking I can buy safety, you cant.

05-20-2012 12:32 PM

snider

Re: engine-less

My first three sailboats where engine-less, starting with a Hobie 16 then a Snipe. When I discovered I could get a 19 foot cruiser for $1,000 less without the engine I went for it. We are lucky here in Charleston SC, most days we have wind. In over a year of sailing sans engine we only had to throw out the anchor once in the harbor until the wind built enough for us to beat against the current.

Most importantly is to be in a slip that is relatively easy to get into and out of. We have strong tides here and it was important to be able to sail out or in during either tide. If it were flat and still we could paddle. Sailing up to and off the dock and anchor were the most favorite aspects of sailing without an engine for me. You have to learn to warp the boat around if you need to be facing the opposite direction in order to get out of the slip. Learn to back the jib if you are starting head to wind in order to get the bow out. It also helps if you can learn to sail your boat backwards. It can be usful if your slip is downwind and the current is running with the wind. You can pull up head to wind and back in, very tricky, but doable. Many times you just have learn to use the tide and wind to your advantage. I would say most if the time it's pretty easy to sail up to a dock unless it's tucked deep in a marina. You need to be able to anchor if needed. You also need a wide array of sails to keep your boat moving when it gets light, or heavy. The Starwind 19 sailed really well so we were able to get by with a 135% and 90% with a double reefable main. I have a 22 footer now and don't have an engine. I don't buy the "have an engine for safety" factor at all. We have very busy shipping lanes here. Once we had to paddle clear of the lane but when you don't have an engine to rely on you are a more prudent sailor. We could have just as easily been in the shipping lane when the wind died then wasted precious time trying to get an engine to start, it could decide to fail right at that point. Even on such a small boat people were surprised when we sailed up to marinas. They always asked, why don't you use the motor?

I had a Beneteau First 235 before our current 22 foot engineless boat. It came with an outboard. our philosophy was to continue as we didn't have an engine. I quickly learned that the only way to sail without an engine is to leave the engine at home. It's to tempting and easy to rely on the engine and start it up.

90% of my fondest memories are without an engine. The only downside in my area is a narrow long deep section of the ICU with a swingbridge. It leads to some pretty nice anchorage spots. The current runs upwards of 4 knots, I would never sail through there. We can get around it if we sail offshore and we don't go there much, so we decided to just adjust our cruising instead of drop $1,600 on an outboard. I'd rather have a new suite of sails.

Also you never have to buy fuel, never have to pay for a tune up, never have to change the oil. It makes the boat so much simpler and for us, more enjoyable

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